New Details Emerge On Wu-Tang Clan Secret Album Sale

Wu-Tang Clan's Once Upon A Time In Shaolin has been sold--and details on its buyer are beginning to come to light. (Photo: Ilja Meefout).

In two separatepieces this week, FORBES broke the news that the Wu-Tang Clan had sold its secret album to an unknown bidder. Today, new details are beginning to emerge.

According to a release by Paddle8, the upstart auction house that sold the double-album, Once Upon A Time In Shaolin has been sold to a "private American collector" for a price "in the millions." The sale was agreed upon in May, but it took months to finalize contracts and legal protections for the unusual record.

“The Wu-Tang Clan have always been driven by innovation, and this marks another moment in musical history," said Wu-Tang cofounder RZA in the statement, adding that the group would donate a significant portion of the proceeds to charity. "From the beginning, we hoped that this concept would inspire debate and new ways of seeing creativity. Both of those goals have been achieved, and the ideas continue to evolve."

Though the precise amount of the sale has not been revealed, Paddle8 says it makes Once Upon A Time In Shaolin the most expensive single album ever sold, topping Jack White's $300,000 purchase of a rare acetate recording of Elvis Presley's first song.

"We pioneered a new type of intellectual property regarding the sale of a work that is simultaneously physical and digital, creating previously unexplored legal protections for a unique work that cannot be reproduced," added Paddle8 cofounder Alexander Gilkes. "This marks an exciting new model of distribution for the music world and we look forward to playing an ongoing role in this innovative model."

As the album's producer, Tarik "Cilvaringz" Azzougarh, explained when FORBES first revealed the album's existence nearly two years ago: "The essence and core of our ideas is to inspire creation and originality and debate, and save the music album from dying.”

Once Upon A Time In Shaolin will remain hidden from the public ear for the foreseeable future, but Wu-Tang fans can still get a taste of the album through the 51-second snippet FORBES obtained while interviewing Azzougarh in his hometown of Marrakech, Morocco--and through the mini-documentary we produced below.